From the archive, 16 August 1944: Miscellany: Gravy on it

"Glamour hose", otherwise an applied leg-tan and substitute for stockings, is the subject of much discussion among women whose coupons will not stretch as far as the genuine article. Someone has discovered that gravy browning is as tasteful on the leg as it is tasty in the gravy, and achieves just the artificial tan which the English climate refuses to bring on naturally. One imagines the bold experimenter to be some bored woman who wandered disconsolately into the larder looking for a cheering tit-bit and seeing there nothing but dried egg, soya flour, and gravy browning was suddenly smitten with a desire to apply externally what she jibbed at taking internally.

The new discovery has only one flaw, as one user found. Her little dog came to heel without command and at every opportunity took a lick at his mistress's legs. This lady has returned to applications of the more orthodox preparations in case she should meet with a big and hungry dog who would stop at nothing less than a mouthful.

Soccer Nazi's "Don't shoot"

How an English and a German professional footballer exchanged reminiscences in a minefield in Normandy is disclosed by Lieutenant Edwin Spicer, the Liverpool F.C. half-back, in a letter to his mother. He tells how a German Medical Corps sergeant-major surrendered to him shouting "Don't shoot. I am a Soccer international." "He spoke perfect English," said Lieutenant Spicer, "and said he was a professional footballer back in the Fatherland and had played against several English touring clubs. He mentioned many well-known English players, including Callaghan, of Aston Villa, against whom he had played in 1937. We had quite an interesting chat while he was being patched up, and you would have thought we were the best of friends."

Mr. William Mabane, Parliamentary Secretary to the Food Ministry, said yesterday that while there had recently been less beer available than consumers would like to drink, there had not been less beer. In the nine months ending June last 25% more beer was brewed than in the same period of 1939.

Beside the special demand at this season because of holidays and hot weather there were other reasons such as the shortage of wines and spirits and an increase in the beer-drinking population. The forces' beer supply was bound up with the question of keeping quality. N.A.A.F.I. has been given all the specially brewed export beer we could manage for our soldiers in France. "We are now engaged in an experiment to see whether the pasteurisation of beer will make it keep for the time necessary to augment the stocks."

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